“Haiti in the World” Oct 14th talk video now available

Video is now available online from the talk I gave October 14th at Fairhaven College, Western Washington University, in Bellingham.

Michele Wucker: “Haiti in the World: Rethinking the Role of the International Community” from Fairhaven College, WWU on Vimeo.

Haiti desperately needs the world’s help. Four devastating storms last year destroyed nearly all of its crops, much of its livestock, and many of the roads that farmers need to get their goods to market. Even before the storms, Haiti only grew 40 percent of the food it needed. After years of coups, violence, mismanagement, and corruption, the challenges facing Haiti are enormous: environmental catastrophe, poverty, hunger, illiteracy, unemployment, and continuing violence. But is the kind of help the world has given so far what Haiti needs most? Many Haitians rightfully feel that international intervention in Haiti doesn’t always benefit Haiti as much as it should; funds are perpetually short, priorities not always well thought out, and the participation of Haitians in the decision process limited. How can the international community do better by Haiti? Can Haiti and the Dominican Republic, which share the island of Hispaniola, put behind them centuries of conflicts and work together to solve mutual problems? What should the priorities be for former President Bill Clinton, recently named UN Special Envoy to Haiti, as a new champion for the Caribbean nation?

If the video’s not showing up in your browser try this link: http://vimeo.com/7354271

Duluth lecture February 24

I gave a lecture at the Royal D Alworth Institute at the University of Minnesota-Duluth on Tuesday.

“Immigration and Globalization”
Presented by Michele Wucker, Executive Director of the World Policy Institute, New York
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
7:00 p.m. – UMD Fourth Floor Library Rotunda

More than 200 million people -a record- now live in countries where they were not born. Policy challenges related to immigration, which is now debated heavily and with much emotion, cannot be resolved through domestic policies alone but must take into account the realities of global interdependence, particularly where economics are concerned. How are countries around the globe responding to record human migration and mobility? What policies will succeed or fail in helping host communities to absorb new immigrants? What can be done to reduce the pressures that force people to leave their countries and families in order to survive? What is the relationship between economic globalization, labor markets, and jobs for immigrants and the native-born? How can policies support the middle classes in both wealthy and poor nations? Through an examination of these questions, Michele Wucker will analyze the new realities of global immigration.

Great Expectations: Challenges for the Next Secretary of State

Here’s a blog post done for the Women’s Media Center on the international policy challenges facing Hillary Clinton, published November 25, 2008.

http://womensmediacenter.com/ex/112508.html

The piece was re-posted widely.